Truth isn't invented or created
of course.
It's there, waiting to be found or revealed.
And discovering unchanging truths,
just below the surface of the everyday,
is one of the great rewards
of conversation, reading and prayer.
Here, I share some of my recent finds,
lest I burst.

Scat Cat! Reflections on Politeness Versus Intention

On Friday, a group of university students stood near where I was sitting and began talking to each other.

One student showed her phone and said to the others, “Look, here’s my son.”

She was referring to her cat.

The others immediately exclaimed, as if on cue, “Oh! He’s so cute!” “Oh, so adorable!!!” It went something like that.

And so I begin my post.

How much do you want to bet that the other girls were lying?
How much do you want to bet that they were just playing up to the cat owner (let’s call her Catatonica)?

I’ll bet you a million dollars.

A meel-yun loonies. Five hundred thousand toonies.

Yeah.

(Math: check.)

(This is an interdisciplinary post, folks.)

Do you REALLY think that they found this cat adorable?
Do you REALLY think that they thought he was so very cute?

I don’t think so.

In the first place, cats do not easily look cute. The cat family, as a whole, does not easily look cute. The feline ‘look’ is more about poise and precision and smooth moves and smooth lines. You could say the cat is about elegance and exactness and efficiency. The cat keeps herself clean and buries anything that would suggest she’s merely a creature. A cat even falls without missing a beat; twisting and flipping, she lands on her feet. Amazing and arguably worthy of admiration, but most certainly, not ‘cute.’

Not even close.

A kitten can be cute, but a cat cannot.

The only people who find cats to be cute are owners of cats. The cat owner has seen the cat in numerous situations and predicaments, and some of them were humorous. The cat owner has, to a greater or lesser extent, bonded with the cat and has developed some level of sympathy and empathy towards it. Depending on the closeness of this bond, the cat owner begins to identify with the cat, projecting many human attributes, thoughts and feelings onto the miniscule brain of this twelve pound animal.

I once shared a home with a cat, and I liked having it around. She came and went as she pleased, and one day, she didn’t return. That was sad, but that’s life. Sometimes those in your life go away and don’t come back. It’s okay. Don’t stress yourself out trying to hang onto someone who’d rather chase diseased mice under the neighbour’s rear deck.

So it’s not surprising that the owner of a cat would show a photo to someone else, thinking that her cat is incredible.

That’s what she thinks.

She really believes that her cat is Quite Special and Worthy of World Fame.

Ah yes.

And so she takes a photo. Then she takes another one. And another one. Here’s the cat from this angle, and here’s the cat from another.

To her, it’s just Cuteness From Every Side.

But you see, there is a problem.

The problem is the eyes.

The eyes of a cat contain a pupil that is almost never round. Our pupils change from being a larger circle to being a smaller one. A cat’s eyes, however, do not operate this way. A cat’s pupil begins as a circle (in very low light conditions) but gets narrower and narrower, until it is just a teeny little sliver.

The technical name for this pointed oval shape is vesica piscis, which literally means ‘fish bladder.’

Visualize two circles, one overlapping onto the other, the way Venn’s diagrams are often shown. That space in the middle is what the cat’s pupil looks like. It can be wider or so extremely narrow that it looks almost like a vertical line. But it’s not — it’s an oval which is pointed on the top and the bottom.

And there you have it – the eye is almost a symbol of the cat itself. Not roly-poly, but razor sharp at both ends, when you happen to look closer. A contented cat will knead its pointy curved claws into your flesh as it purrs. Endearing, hey?

This is why cat photographs will be low on cuteness. The photograph itself may be quite stunning, but it won’t be because the cat is cute. (In order to do cute, the eyes are critical. Big round eyes are an essential ingredient, as you and I and all the modern illustrators and toy manufacturers know.)

Mind you, great efforts are made by photographers and cat owners to present various cats as convincingly lovable. But it’s not easy. A common approach is to put furball into a costume or pose it with some apparatus. See if you can hold the cat down long enough to add an apron and a chef’s hat! Here’s a mixing bowl, some flour and a rolling pin – maybe now you’ve managed it. Bait the cat with some fish treats mixed with cupcake batter and look kitty look kitty here we go now look at the camera and almost and please and don’t get distracted and there I think we’ve got it and whew, let’s hope we’re done.

Now pour yourself some rum.

We both know you need it. (Yeah, ya ‘need’ it.)

Either that or just open the back door when you’re done. There’s relief. Kitty just might go for a stroll and not leave a forwarding address.

(Take your fish bladder eyes and beat it, baby!)

Ha ha. I guess I digress.

But to digress further, lately I was studying the lines to ‘Eye of the Tiger,’ the hit single from 1982. The initial plan, according to Jim Peterik, one of the co-writers of the song, was to name the song ‘Survival.’ Although I appreciate the poetry of the name ‘Eye of the Tiger,’ it would have been better if they had stuck to the original inspiration. I know that you protest, since it’s been so many years and you’re so used to the current name, but I’m right, as usual.

The way they’ve got it now, the listener tends to think of Tigger as the hero of the story. It’s confusing. The strong beat and the refrain work together so well that the listener gets swept up into the imagery, and thinks rather well of Tigger’s eyes. But this big cat is not the hero and neither are his slitty eyes. The man is the hero. He’s the survivor. He’s the one “rising up to the challenge of our rival.” (“Just a man and his will to survive …”) If they had kept the title the way they had planned, this essential aspect of celebrating the hero (the human) would have been preserved.

Ah well.

They didn’t ask me.

And to return to the students whom I overheard chatting, they didn’t ask me either. Catatonica didn’t ask ME whether I thought her ‘son’ was cute.

And that’s another thing. I really dislike it when people refer to their pets as their children. It’s done too often and it’s neither original nor amusing. A man calls his two dogs his “boys.” A woman calls her cat her “baby.”

Stop it. It’s not endearing and it’s not clever. It’s confusing and it sounds like you have your priorities entirely out of kilter. If you love your pet to that extent, please, just keep it to yourself. Go back in the closet and take the cat with you. And hey, don’t forget your kitty litter.

Man.

Click.

That’s better.

Where was I?

Ah yes. This is, believe it or not, a post about politeness.

That’s where I was going with this.

You see, the thing is that the people who were listening to Catatonica were giving the response that they knew Catatonica wanted to hear. They knew that the expected response to a photo of a pet shown by a female acquaintance or friend is one of Gushing Overflowing Praise and Fascination.

So that’s what I heard: exclamations of amazement, as if they’d never seen a domestic feline before. They gave Catatonica precisely what she wanted. They cooed on cue.

Yet if you showed these responders a line-up of forty-nine cats, would they single out Catatonica’s pet as being notably better? I bet her cat looked pretty much like, um, a cat. No better, no worse.

And so, at best, this cat looked as cute as cats do. And, as I have said, I don’t think that’s particularly cute. I suspect it was a rather ordinary cat. Most are.

Mind you, I didn’t see the photo. Maybe I’m wrong. Hey, as a matter of fact, that gives me an idea. The next time I see Catatonica, maybe I’ll ask if she could show me a photo of her son.

She’d probably look at me like I were crazy.

She’d say, “Son? I don’t have a son.”

Then I’d say, “You know, your cat.”

Man. This is so absurd.

But anyway, my point is that there is an unfortunate tendency for those who wish to be social to say whatever they think is needed (‘needed’) in the moment.

The intention has about three parts here:

Short term: I will tell a lie (it doesn’t really matter what I say).Medium term: I will make this person happy.Long term: I can hang out with her until I find someone better – someone who doesn’t show me photos of her pet(s) on her phone.

The thing is that all parts of the intention should be good. It is not okay to have a bad short-term goal with the excuse that it will bring you closer to a decent (‘nice’) medium-term goal. The end does not justify the means, as you know.

You cannot use the excuse of politeness or friendliness to justify telling untruths. It’s not right.

If the photo of the cat doesn’t thrill you, it’s okay to say so. It’s okay to say, “I’m not into cats, actually.” Or it’s okay to say, “Hey! I have a cat too (and it’s way better looking than yours)!” And from there, you have numerous friendly but non-lying options. You can ask her what her cat’s name is, or how old it is, or where she got it. You can comment on her photography or the props in the pic. You can plan a play-date for your cat and hers. Go wild.

There are many choices, is my point. Your reply can be direct or distracting, but keep it honest. You don’t have to lay it on thick and act as if you’ve never seen a mammal before in your life.

You see, the problem is lying. Nowadays, we think that the ultimate sin is rudeness, but this is not the worst thing. As a matter of fact, it may not even be a sin at all.

Lying, however, is a sin.

It’s really quite simple.

The devil is called “the father of lies.”

He is not called “the father of bad manners.” He is not called “the father of rudeness.” Satan is the father of lies. Lies are bad and they mess with your soul.

Consider how Jesus spoke to the deceptive and hypocritical Pharisees. Did he speak politely and coo convincingly when they showed him pictures of their pet rooster(s)?

No, he did not.

He told the Pharisees that they were vipers, because they were.

He told them they were like grave-beds, looking white and immaculate on the outside while they were in fact rotting and disgusting on the inside. He said this because they were.

Was it ‘rude’?

I suppose.

But the thing is, it was true.

And don’t you find it quite interesting that his attacks weren’t levelled against those who were viewed as obviously ‘bad’ in his day?

I do.

I find it interesting and worthy of note that the folks who were deserving of direct confrontation were the ones who were viewed as obviously ‘good.’ The self-righteous folks got the worst of it.

And the situation is the same today.

We associate goodness with those who are experts at satisfying all the social demands of politeness, whether they belong to the local pro-life group or whether they belong to the Entirely Eco group. These well-mannered folks get the prize of being Respectable, Thoughtful and Kind.

Ah! We’re so blind!

The truth is that Jesus didn’t call us to be polite. He didn’t call us to remember to raise our pinky when we sipped our afternoon tea. He didn’t give up his life to show us how to Talk Nice.

Hell no!

Afternoon tea and Etiquette 101 weren’t even on his radar. As a matter of fact, all the rituals related to eating and drinking were largely dismissed. Haven’t you read about how he was questioned because his disciples didn’t wash their hands? Ah, it sure made the snobby folks mad! Those in the Know became brazen in their attacks, kind of like JHW when he challenges the Pope.

But Jesus’ apostles learned not to bow to all the little rules about hygiene and decorum. They knew, from their Master, that it wasn’t about ceremonials and rituals and external observances of this kind and that.

It was about following Christ, not about following conventions.

Christ was never about false politeness or social standards. His friends and his enemies noted that he didn’t treat people according to their positions. This is not to say that Jesus was ignorant about the practices of the time. He was familiar with them — he even gave advice about how to behave when invited as a guest (don’t take the best seat). If he’d wanted to, he could’ve written a book about How to Make Friends and Socialize.

But he didn’t.

And here, I might as well interject that I do not say that politeness itself is wrong. It can be beautiful, provided that it is genuine, and not a means of carrying out a deception. It can be a lovely and an almost-unconscious expression of meekness and goodness, but far too often, etiquette, politeness and ‘good manners’ are used and exploited by those who want to manufacture a counterfeit version of holiness or goodness. On the outside, you will find a soft voice, gosh-golly words and plenty of smiles, accented with tears. On the inside, you will find plotting, scheming and malevolence. Indeed, all you need to do is pierce the thin crust of award-winning delicacy and decorum (a couple of emails should do it) in order to find foul lava swirling relentlessly underneath. They lash out and you see the truth.

Yikes.

But I return to my point and I repeat – Jesus was not shackled by society’s expectations. He knew what they were, yet he shattered them, as needed.

He said what needed to be said. He did what needed to be done. He was different, and his intentions went something like this:

Short-term: Say what is true (it matters greatly what is said by you).

Medium-term: The wrongdoer will either change or be warned. The innocent will learn that evil disguises itself as goodness, and that evil should be confronted and challenged.

Long-term: The innocent will be strengthened and confirmed in their actions and will benefit on earth and in heaven. The wrongdoer shall pay the price for his evil intentions both before and after death.

Unfortunately, the average person’s short, medium and long-term goals are not quite so admirable. The average person’s goals are too often woefully foolish, focusing on personal advantage, even at the expense of others.

Self-examination is discarded in favour of self-promotion.

Consideration of spiritual issues is discarded in favour of consideration of superficial issues.

Discussion of meaningful topics is discarded in favour of discussion about insignificant topics.

It’s too bad, but this is how it is, too often.

Don’t complain that I say it. Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation spoke eloquently about the humility of the truth. Sometimes things aren’t good, and we might as well admit it.

But in the current climate, where the superficial obscures the meaningful, it is considered in bad taste to denounce what is wrong. It is viewed as preferable to pretend that all is well, and that the cat is cute.

And in such a climate, it is barely possible to complain that a person cannot complain — that would be a little too close to honest discussion.

What a pickle.

It’s unfortunate. ‘Good manners’ mandates that we do not question each others’ words or actions. ‘Good manners’ becomes almost the standard for judging the worthiness of others, and if you can accuse someone of rudeness, or of having a tone A Little Bit Harsh, then you’ll be proud the discussion is done. You’ll be smug, thinking the game has been won.

Oh, how wrong!

Meet my buddy Jesus.

Have you heard of him? They’re talking about this guy all over town and hey – that video of him knocking over the tables in the temple has gone totally viral. I can’t believe you haven’t seen it!

Yeah, he’s a game changer, no doubt.

Look out.

And hey, he sent me a text — he wants me to tell you that if your style is to keep a smile on your face while you put a knife in a back, you’d better watch out …